Pressure mounts for Toronto Mayor Rob Ford to step down

May 1, 2014
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Toronto mayor Rob Ford is questioned by reporters at city hall in Toronto on Jan. 30. / Chris Young, AP

by Natalie DiBlasio, USA TODAY

by Natalie DiBlasio, USA TODAY

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Pressure is mounting for Toronto Mayor Rob Ford to step down after a new video surfaced showing him with what may be crack cocaine.

Ford announced Wednesday that he will take a leave of absence and seek treatment for alcohol problems. Despite widespread criticism, he is running for re-election in October.

The Globe and Mail newspaper said it viewed a video from a self-professed drug dealer showing Ford taking a drag from a pipe early Saturday in his sister's basement.

News reports of an earlier video of Ford smoking crack first surfaced last May.

City Council member Gloria Lindsay Luby said she wants Ford to step down immediately. "Just a matter of days is not enough to get over any severe addiction," she said.

"When I travel and people ask where I am from, I don't want to say I am from Toronto," said Luby, who has been on the council since 1985. "It's embarrassing. It never stops. He is a dinosaur and the way he looks at women is disgusting."

The Toronto Sun said Wednesday that it had obtained an audio recording of Ford at a bar making lewd remarks about council member Karen Stintz, who is also running for mayor, and about his wife.

"Rob Ford's comments are disgusting," Stintz wrote on her website. "Rob Ford is not Toronto. Toronto is tired of City Hall being gripped by this sad mess."

Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly will fill in for Ford, taking over his limited role as mayor. The city council suspended some of the mayor's duties and powers for the rest of his term when he refused to resign after a string of incidents in 2013, from public drunkenness to an appearance in another video that showed him threatening "murder" in an incoherent rant.

In a statement late Wednesday,Ford said: "I have a problem with alcohol and the choices I have made while under the influence. I have struggled with this for some time."

The mayor's older brother, Doug Ford, also a council member, choked back tears Thursday at a news conference at Toronto City Hall.

"Rob was very emotional when he told me the hardest thing about this is he knows he let people down. He let his family down. He let his friends down. He let his colleagues down. He let his supporters down, and the people of Toronto," Doug Ford said.

"I love my brother," he said. "I'll continue to stand by my brother and his family throughout this difficult journey."

He asked that everyone keep Rob and his family in their prayers and that they "respect his privacy."

John Tory, who is also running for mayor, called on Ford to resign "for the good of the city.''

The Toronto Star wrote in an editorial: "Ford shouldn't be mayor of Toronto. He's not fit to hold any public office."

"I've been in politics more than 30 years and I have never seen anything like this," said council member John Filion. "But the council is carrying on better than ever. When the plane crashes in the woods, the survivors pull themselves together and start working with each other."

Filion isn't calling for the mayor to step down.

"Clearly when somebody says they are going away to try to get better, you wish them well rather then kick them when they are down," he said. "We already took away his powers and disarmed him, so he couldn't do any damage to the city. We can function without him and around him."